The Edited Bible is a massive book both in
quantity and quality. The author brings us back to the basic principles
of the philological-literary and historical foundations of Biblical
criticism. His goal is to examine fundamental notions that are taken by
scholars as axiomatic and are instrumental in the realm of Biblical
studies. The fundamental issue of this book is the critical matter of
editorial or redaction criticism. Since the days of Julius Wellhausen
scholars maintain that the Pentateuch is actually a composition of three
or even four edited works that were put together by final editors as one
book and that its origins might be reconstructed due to a careful
philological-literary analysis. In contrast, Van Seters argues that the
notion of “editors” is actually a scholarly invention and not more.

Van Seters’ methodology is a comparative study that is
based on the study of the "classical world." In this regard, he provides detailed
studies of scholars in Classics in order to draw proper conclusions
regarding biblical scholarship. Van Seters’ review of classical literature indicates to
him that the role of the editor or the redactor is confined to matters
of textual criticism, and the poets or authors took responsibility for
their own work, so there is no such a notion of an editor but rather of
an author.

Actually, Van Seters regards the entire scholarship
concerning editors and redactors in the realm of Biblical studies as a
mistake, due to the early influence of Classics scholarship. Van Seters claims
that the model of editors was rejected in the twentieth century and
since then the study of the Classics regards the model of editors as a
useless anachronism. The problem with biblical criticism is that it
imitated earlier Classics scholarship but ignored this newer development
in the Classics. In brief, Van Seters insists that there are authors—not
editors—who take full literary responsibility for the biblical
compositions moving from the oral sporadic fragments into written works
of their own. They are the biblical authors.

No doubt, Van Seters has engaged Biblical scholarship in
an important debate regarding the methodological essence of the profession. How did
this happened? How did biblical scholars not notice that the core
of their scholarship was faulty? Van Seters argues that this
central model
has controlled scholarship; scholars have been enslaved to the paradigm.
Scholars working outside these paradigm would have excluded themselves from the mainstream and
would have been
dismissed.

There is much in favor of this explanation. In spite of a
fresh interest in theories of literature which could have altered the paradigm
of editors, many Biblical scholars read in a fragmented way theories of literature and establish literary axioms
that are quite
artificial in the eyes of well trained literary scholars. As a result,
the methodology criticized by Van Seters remains not only alive but
energetic. The conservative guild of scholarship dominates
the field.

There is merit in Van Seters’ claim that
biblical works are literary compositions produced by authors and not
compilers. This is a significant argument that might turn critical
biblical scholarship upside down. However, I am skeptical if Van Seters
will succeed in his ambitious task. The point revolves around his
methodology. For the crucial argument that the biblical works are
actually literary products of authors one cannot rely on the scholarship
of the "classical world" and maintain that it has changed its direction. Van Seters relies on secondary sources but not on a detailed
literary-stylistic analysis. He explains that he is not a classical
scholar but this is a poor excuse. He does not present the internal
debate in the study of "classical literature." Actually, it might happen
that Classicists of the twentieth century became tired of the
analytical-archaeological survey of their own 19th century
scholarship and found more attractive subjects of scholarship which pay
attention to the work as a whole.

The model of authors rather than
compilers in Biblical studies provides a careful paradigm of
literary criticism that asks one fundamental question: What is a
literary work? How is it designed? How is it represented? These are
difficult questions that are not treated with the necessary depth by Biblical scholars.

To sum up, this is a coherent book expressed in a clear
and loud voice, which opens the door for a review of Biblical critical
scholarship. This is an ambitious work which should be read and studied.